Page 41 - 2005-12

BOOK REVIEW:

Castle Films: A Hobbyist's Guide

The name CASTLE FILMS is well known
to most home move enthusiasts. At their
peak, Castle offered a large range of
films in 8mm and 16mm formats, later
adding Super 8 to the catalog.

It is interesting to read that Castle’s
most popular reseases, the Abbott &
Costello series, were released without
the duo’s knowledge – the matter being
finally settled out of court in 1952.

The book’s 410 pages are divided into
three sections – The history of Castle
Films from their origins in 1937 when the
founder Eugene W. Castle put together a
few newsreel releases for the growing
home movie market, through their
heyday of the late 1940s and 1950s to
their ultimate demise and the short lived
take over by Universal. Part two is a
listing of titles under subject headings.
This section contains lots of information
on the origin of the release, as well as
the performers. The final section is an
alphabetical listing of all Castle releases. Unfortunately, the alphabetical listing does not
have a cross-reference to the more detailed listings under subject headings.
Between the sections there are about 20 pages of reproduced Castle advertising and
catalog extracts. Unfortunately, due to the rather coarse paper used, these are poorly
reproduced.

The author makes comment on the excellent sound and picture quality of the
(presumably American) Castle releases. Being an American publication, no reference is
made of the films that came our way in Australia. Many of these were released with GB
Movie Pak or 16mm Australia intro titles and from the many that I have seen, both
picture and sound quality could vary considerably from film to film.

Unfortunately, the question that has bugged me for almost 50 years is still not answered
– some Castle films list Eugene W. Castle as producer, while other releases mention
William E. Castle – could it be that this is the same person?

Castle Films: A Hobbyist's Guide is available from www.amazon.com It is priced at
US $ 26.99 + postage.

- Mike Trickett